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Resources updated between Monday, October 13, 2014 and Sunday, October 19, 2014

October 18, 2014

A sign reads "Respecting Hejab is mandatory in City Center," dictating Islamic dress for women at the Esfahan City Center shopping mall, on June 2, 2014 in Esfahan, Iran.

"Zealots on motorcycles are throwing acid at women whose veils are deemed too loose in the ancient city of Isfahan. Are they defying the law, or enforcing it?

"Every day before leaving home, Sara stands before the mirror and tightens the knot on her scarf. She has not worn makeup for two weeks and she wears a black long-sleeved top under a raincoat. She checks the buttons to make sure that they are all tightly fastened. But when she steps outside, she still worries. And so do her parents.

"Sara, 21 years old, lives in the historic Iranian city of Isfahan, close to Jolfa, the Christian quarter. For the past two weeks there have been rumors going around that a group of motorcyclists are throwing acid on women whose hejabs, the veils to be worn over the hair in the Islamic Republic, do not meet this gang's standards. They target women's faces, and the attacks are said to have been concentrated, precisely, in Sara's neighborhood.

"On October 16 the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) confirmed one report: a woman in a car had been attacked, and acid was thrown in her face. There was widespread speculation that it was done as a means of punishment because the woman was wearing an 'improper' hejab arranged to show too much of the hair and face beneath. Colonel Hossein Hosseinzadeh, deputy commander of the security forces in Isfahan, confirmed that two such attacks had taken place, but he said the motive was not clear and the police were pursuing the matter.
Fazlollah Kafil, Isfahan's governor, said that the victim was a married woman. 'It is possible that the motive was personal,' he said. 'We have to investigate such cases carefully. If we are too hasty, we will make people feel unsafe. Police will let us know what they find out as soon as possible.'

"But residents of Isfahan feel unsafe already. According to some reports, up to six women have been taken to Isfahan's Feyz Hospital in connection with acid attacks. The hospital specializes in treating eye conditions. One person IranWire spoke to said the average age of the women is about 30."

While we are looking for terrorists sneaking across borders, lurking in mosques and holed up in caves, pro-terrorist ideology is spreading across America and around the globe - disseminated in plain sight from the United Nations, in the heart of New York City.

Over the past week, the UN's top legal committee - a General Assembly body where all 193 states are represented - met to discuss terrorism. The webcasts are broadcast globally in multiple languages. The documents are translated and disseminated on a mammoth website free of charge.

It's a two-step charade. First, since the UN has no definition of terrorism, state sponsors of terrorism happily denounce "terrorism" at the very same time as they promote it. Second, the terrorist funders and weapons suppliers redirect the world's attention to the supposed "root causes" of terrorism.

Conveniently, the catalog of root causes of terrorism dreamed up in these circles never includes religiously driven bigotry doled out by anti-Semites and misogynist, homophobic sociopaths - whose need to torture, rape and kill requires no deep explanation.

A quick moral inversion, and the terrorist becomes the victim.

The UN was full of such dangerous canards last week.

On Oct. 7, at the legal committee meeting at UN headquarters, Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon listed "root causes that may lead to radicalism such as . . . poverty, social exclusion and marginalization" along with "Islamophobia."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani played the same card in an address to the General Assembly in September when he whined about "Iranophobia."

Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. And to the organization's great shame, Iran is also the president of the so-called "Non-Aligned Movement" - a group of nations routinely aligned against the West. As such, Iran speaks for 120 UN member states - a majority of the 193 UN countries.

Here's the Iranian speech to the UN legal beagles that was webcast Oct. 7: "Terrorism should not be equated with the legitimate struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation for self-determination and national liberation."

Here's state sponsor of terrorism North Korea on the same day: "Domination and interference, poverty and social inequality, and racial or religious discrimination constitute the root cause of terrorism. International efforts to put an end to terrorism should be preceded by removing the root cause of terrorism."

All 56 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have signed on to the Islamic Convention on Combating International Terrorism, which gives a green light to killing Israelis, Americans and anybody else deemed fair game. The treaty says: "Peoples' struggle, including armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism and hegemony, aimed at liberation and self-determination . . . shall not be considered a terrorist crime."

Speaking on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Oct. 7, Egypt reiterated this pro-terror exemption clause. Over the course of Oct. 7 and 8, the UN trumpeted support for the Iranian and Organization of Islamic Cooperation call to arms from half of all the speakers.
Compounding the efficacy of this outrage, unfortunately, is the Obama administration. With great fanfare, on Sept. 24,, President Obama chaired a Security Council meeting that unanimously adopted a resolution on foreign terrorist fighters.

But the only reason everybody could agree that "terrorism constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security" was because terrorism was left undefined.

Moreover, the Security Council didn't just denounce terrorism. It demanded we "address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism." Next it insisted we "counter the violent, extremist narrative that can incite terrorist acts." And then it ordered us to "address the conditions conducive to the spread of violent extremism."

In other words, Obama sold us an infinite regression. Because at the UN, the buck never stops with radical Islamists or the governments that support them.

On October 7 and 8, 2014 the UN General Assembly Legal Committee ("the sixth committee") discussed "measures to eliminate international terrorism" despite the fact that the UN has no internationally-agreed definition of terrorism.

The Committee has been considering the adoption of an overall "Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism" for the past 18 years. But standing in the way is the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Arab Terrorism Convention and the Terrorism Convention of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) define terrorism to exclude armed struggle for liberation and self-determination. This claim purports to exclude murdering selected civilians - starting with Israelis - from the reach of international law and organizations.

At the October Sixth Committee meeting Egypt, speaking for the OIC, "reiterated once again the need to make a distinction between terrorism and the exercise of the legitimate right of peoples to resist foreign occupation."

Numerous other speakers vigorously supported the OIC position:

Iran, speaking for 120 countries of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM): "Terrorism should not be equated with the legitimate struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation, for self-determination and national liberation."

United Arab Emirates (UAE): "We should not confuse terrorism and actions by those who act on their own behalf."

Qatar: "Our delegation reiterates its position namely that this convention...should include distinction between terrorism and the legitimate resistance to foreign occupation, self-defense, and the right of people under occupation to self-determination..."

Lebanon: "It is important to distinguish between acts of terrorism and legitimate right to resistance to foreign occupation."

Malaysia: "Malaysia wishes to reiterate its position ...of the legitimacy of resistance to foreign aggression and the struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation."

Yemen: "It is necessary to complete a comprehensive convention, which includes a clear definition that distinguishes between terrorism and legitimate resistance against occupation."

Pakistan: "The comprehensive convention on terrorism must clearly differentiate between acts of terrorism and legitimate struggles for self-determination of people living under foreign occupation."

Algeria: "Any confusion between acts of terrorism and the legitimate struggle of peoples under colonial or foreign occupation ... should be avoided."

The following countries also supported the statements made by either the OIC or the NAM: Trinidad and Tobago speaking for the Caribbean Community, Belarus, Nicaragua, DRC, Guatemala, Sudan, Tanzania, DPRK, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Philippines, Morocco, South Africa, Syria, Cuba, Peru, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Eritrea.

"The Islamic State group said it enslaved families from the minority Yazidi sect after overrunning their villages in northwestern Iraq, in what it praised as the revival of an ancient custom of using women and children as spoils of war. In an article in its English-language online magazine Dabiq, the group provides what it says is religious justification for the enslavement of defeated 'idolators'. The ancient custom of enslavement had fallen out of use because of deviation from true Islam, but was revived when fighters overran Yazidi villages in Iraq's Sinjar region. 'After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations, after one fifth of the slaves were transferred to the Islamic State's authority to be divided as chums,' it said. Khums is a traditional tax on the spoils of war. 'This large-scale enslavement of mushrik (idolator) families is probably the first since the abandonment of Shariah law,' it said..."